The Best Kids TV Shows Ever !!!!!

 

1. “Boy from Space” - “Look and Read” :  This was a popular TV show in the 80’s that kids would watch at about 11 am each day as a break from class.  The host Wordey was a legless red faced little man who would fly around chanting “Magic Magic E”.  Nobody realised at the time that he was a pioneering drug pusher getting ready for the era of raves.  “Boy From Space” was one of the stories featured in the show and it revolved around a couple of alien kids who looked like the children of the damned but with blue suits that appeared to be made from tissue paper and a language that only the teacher from Charlie Brown could imitate.  The actual episodes were all of 5 minutes long at the end of each “Look and read” segment and sci-fi obsessed kids all over Britain waited with baited breath each week for the latest fun installment.  The “Dark Towers” story was also a classic but the little lad from the stars was the pick of the bunch.

2.”Newsround”: with John Craven:  It may seem odd to highlight a kids news show as being a cult TV classic but the sad reality is that Craven and his sidekicks produced a 10 minute show containing more real news items than you’d see after a year of watching Fox and or MSNBC today.  I particularly liked the endless reports on giant Panda’s and space shuttle launches. 

 3.”The Flumps”:  Long before that northern bloke was winning Oscars for dull films about Wallace and his dog the BBC had set the standard for animation with “The Flumps”  This was easily the best show of its genre and one of the all time classic moments of television was when Grandpa flump got stuck in his Flumpaphone.

4.”Mr Benn” :  This guy was the ultimate master of disguise.  Every week he went to some kind of fancy dress shop and disappeared through the dressing room into many weird and wonderful places.  He tried his hand at being everything from a cowboy to a clown but his real brilliance was in his ability to persuade the shopkeeper to let him keep trying on costumes all the time without ever buying a single item from the store. 

5.”The A-Team”:  In this era of cheesy remakes I am surprised that no one has decided to make a big screen version of the greatest US TV show of all time : The A-Team.  I bet George Clooney would like a stint as Hannibal alongside Jim Carey as Murdoch and perhaps Di Caprio as Face.  BA would be harder to cast but perhaps DMX would be the man for the job and it would be the kind of thing that could lead to at least 3 or 4 sequels which is right up Clooneys alley. 

6. “Tim Tyler “(aka Timm Thaler) :  This was a German classic about a kid whose laugh was stolen by an evil Baron in 1970’s Berlin (?)  The show was great because the worst sound editors in the history of television hired some drunk B movie actors to dub it into English and during the whole series not one word was uttered by a character in English at the same time his mouth was in motion.  Aside from the cheap production this show was also memorable for the flairs and hippie hairstyles that defined an otherwise forgettable era.

7. “Degrassi Junior High” :  This was Canada’s answer to Grange Hill and was so terrible that it was actually  good for its utter patheticness.  I remember that one episode caused a stir as it featured the revelation that one of the teachers was a lesbian before the old BBC watershed.  Oddly enough the BBC didn’t buy a lot of shows from the land where people say “aye” after the ratings for this one were compiled but I still have a soft spot for it.

8.”Silas”: The people who dubbed this Polish gem into English did a marginally better job than their counterparts had done with Tim Tyler but the real issue was the fact that phrases that take about two syllables to say in English take 5 minutes to say in Polish and vice versa.  I remember that Silas was harrased by an nefarious harridan who was known simply as “The Old Shrew”.  I can’t remember the plot of the show but basically it involved around a kid riding around on a horse and every  week it had the same cliffhanger ending as he crossed paths with his nemesis and he exclaimed “the shrew”  Brilliant !

9. “Airwolf”: Some people may remember Ernest Borgnine as the Roman soldier at the foot of the cross or as the cop who married a hooker in “The Poseidon Adventure” but I remember him most fondly as the pilot of the best helicopter ever built, Airwolf.  This show had a simple message:  Criminals beware of copters loaded to the brim with machine guns because no matter where you run Ernie will blow your head off.  This was much better than anything you’ll see on CSI, eat your heart out David Caruso.

10. “Neighbours”: Not technically a kids show but try telling that to anyone who grew up in the UK in the late eighties.  So many kids were skipping school to watch this Aussie classic that the BBC moved it to the 5.30 spot after “Blue Peter” which had usually been reserved for shows like “Doctor Who” or “Friday film: The Glitterball.”  I was skiving off school in 1987 when the first episode was broadcast and after I saw Max Ramsey lose his temper, Des fall for stripper Daphne and Shane introduce the southern hemisphere to the mullet there was no looking back.

HEROES : THE SHOW NBC CAN’T AFFORD TO CANCEL

  

If only the writers of “Jericho” had decided to end their season in the same manner the “Heroes” writers did !!!  Alas !  Whilst one show wrapped up nicely the other was cast into the abyss never to see the joy of being listed on the TVGuide channel again.

Last nights episode of “Heroes” did leave us wondering about one or two things although for the most part the story tied up a lot of loose ends.  I wonder if Siler is still alive because the last shot seemed to suggest his blood soaked body had made it’s way down a nearby man hole.  I have a feeling he will be back in some shape or form.  It was pretty cool when whacko Nikki/Jessica/blondie bimbo smacked the crap out of him but I would have liked to have seen everyone pile in a bit more.  It would have been like one of those times at school when some fat kid wouldyell “Bundle” and everybody would jump on top of the skinny kid until a teacher would finally intervene and extract his lifeless form.  I would have liked to have seen Micah bop him on the nose and I am sure Clare’s Dad would have liked to get a kick in as well.  Clare’s Dad is pretty cool actually if you can overlook the fact that he once tried to murder Doctor Who aka the Invisible bloke.  He actually reminds me of my old boss at work who was a little odd but a decent enough bloke.  Sadly Clare’s Dad has since been replaced by Tony Soprano as my boss but that’s another story.

One thing that I didn’t quite understand was why Peter had to get Nathans help to fly.  The last I knew he was just as capable a flier as he was a nuclear bomber after being exposed to the powers of both caveman Ted and evil Nate.  I guess it’s possible that he can only use one power at a time or perhaps the radiation was too overwhelming for him to think about jetting off in space.  Either way I still think Nathan is a prat because of his overall slimy sleaze bag attitude to Clare, her weirdo hippie Mum and well just society in general.  Hopefully he was incinerated without causing too much of a hike in the global warming process but I want Pete to return next year because he has pretty much become the star of the show.

The producers have said that they plan to make the show more like “24″ than “Lost” in as far as it will have season long storylines rather than one continuous tale.   We have several questions though to be answered after this season like:  How did everyone know there was going to be a bomb and why were they cool with that ?  Who is the boogey man who makes Siler seem no more menacing thanRonald McDonald ?  Will they do what day time soaps often do and replace the kid actors with teen actors once they realise it’s hard to carry a story with two 7 year old kids ?  Will Ted get a role on ABC’s new sitcom based upon the Geico caveman commercials ?  Will the insurance company cough up to replace Clare’s house or will they say that nuclear explosions aren’t covered in the policy ?  Will Mr Sulu pass on his old yellow Enterprise shirt to Hiro or will he give him the red one he wore in the movies ?  Will Christopher Ecclestone find a third new sci-fi show to appear on for one year as a smart arse Mancunian ?  These are the things I am left pondering but the good news is that NBC have commissioned 30 new episodes for next year so whilst we’re all sitting around watching repeats of “Lost” on ABC and re-runs of “The Price is right” in “Jerichos” old slot we can at least rest easy in the knowledge that at least we have one show left that actually fulfills us.

CBS KILLS JERICHO

 

 

There are times when I wish that I hadn’t tempted fate and one of those times occurred this past week.  A guy at my work with whom I regularly discuss television news was asking me about the season finale of my best show “Jericho”.  After giving him a run down of the thrilling cliffhanger I couldn’t help but take a swipe at “Entertainment Weekly”.  Back in August that magazine had proudly declared that of all the new shows being broadcast in the fall that “Jericho” was the most likely to be cancelled.  They had also predicted great success for “Smith” (haha 3 episodes and scrapped) and “Sunset Strip thing with Chandler from Friends” or whatever it was called but either way it was also a flop.  I knew “Jericho” had been popular earlier in the year but it turns out that after CBS decided to give it a prolonged break mid season that some ungratfeul good for nothing selfish bastard viewers didn’t bother to watch the most recent episodes because they were too busy mowing their lawns, attending PTA nights or having “American Idol” parties.  As a result CBS have decided to send the show to the scrap heap where all great shows seem to end up these days.  The same thing happened to “Invasion” and I am sure that long before the next 48 padded and pointless episodes of “Lost” have been broadcast that all of the broadcast delays will ultimately lead to a sad demise for that show as well.

“Jericho” was bloody brilliant though and I am furious that that the network that thinks having a crappy actor in a black suit with bright orange hair putting on and takingoff his sunglasses repeatedly for an hour at a time constitutes “drama.”  CBS needs to be shut down for crimes against television.  Anyone could have told you that an old git who uses expressions involving “tornadoes and trailer parks” to describe elections would be far more liked than some kind of 50 year old Olsen twin wannabee as the host of the evening news.  CBS don’t know what the hell they are doing when it comes to quality programming.  “Jericho” had everything you could ask for : a failed movie actor in the lead role, gun wielding yanks, terrorism, love triangles, a bar, a bald headed villain and even a pumpkin patch that Charlie Brown would be proud of and yet we will never ever know the fate of Skeet and the boys now as someone has decided that it would be better to show a new drama about Swingers in 1970’s Chicago instead.  For anyone who thinks that new show sounds interesting I wouldn’t even bother wathcing it because the only shows that last past one season these days are reality shows and cheapskate quiz shows.  Whoever made the decision to cancel “Jericho” will have to smoke a turd in hell for sure but instead of cancelling the show they should have maybe fired the person who decided to interrupt its broadcast for a few months mid season and therefore lost it half of its audience base.

I really have no use for CBS now so I don’t expect to be watching it ever again.  I used to watch “King of Queens” when it was funny but after about 57 scheduling changes that show has now become nothing more than the unfunny show featuring the fat guy and the miserable, old looking Scientologist chick.  They should have cancelled that before it died it’s slow tedious death but no that would have required some intelligence on CBS part.

I guess I will start a new life based around the Discovery Channel and CMT whilst CBS can carry on being mismanaged and firing folks like Imus for being innapropriate whilst saying nothing about the vulgar content of their music channels.    One day pretty soon they will get their just desserts when David Caruso loses his sunglasses on the way to work and everybody realises that they were the only thing that held the whole “CSI” franchise together. 

 

Near Death Experience near Denver !

 

I had read in the guide books that sometimes there is a little snow in Colorado in May but as we approached the Rocky mountains for the first time it appeared there was actually rather a lot.  We stopped at one of the many “Welcome centers” and a guy who if he wasn’t a national park employee would probably be an actor in B movie westerns told us that the lake near the top of the mountain “may have a little ice on it.”  We set off to the top of the mountain and the higher we drove the more the snow mounted until we finally got to Bear lake.  I don’t know why it’s called “Bear lake” since apparently there aren’t typically any bears in the vicinity and on this particular day the word “lake” could easily have been replaced with the words “massive heap of snow.”  We probably wouldn’t have even noticed the lake but for the fact that there was a “no fishing” sign by the side of it and we probably wouldn’t have noticed that sign if there hadn’t been a strange una bomber looking man sleeping with his feet hanging out of what appeared to be the “Scooby Doo” van in front of it. 

There was a path around the perimeter of the lake and although we couldn’t see it we were able to pretty much judge where it was.  My 5 year old daughter was ecstatic about seeing snow and revealed that recently her pre-K teacher had asked all of the kids in her class if any of them had ever seen snow.  My daughter hadn’t and apparently was in the minority since all her class mates are New Yorkers whose parents decided they couldn’t put up with loud mouthed cabbies berating them on their way to work any more and headed to Florida to help push up our house prices instead.   Anyway I guess that it upset her and she made some kind of speech that by the sounds of it was similar to Scarlett O’Hara’s “I’ll never go hungry again” thing except in my daughters case I guess it was more like “I’ll never say I’ve never seen snow again.”

My wife wasn’t too impressed with the snow because she thinks that the Earths temperature should never be less than 80 degrees and the sun should always be shining which I guess explains why she always goes on about wanting to buy a massive SUV.  As we were walking along I heard a scream from behind me and turned to see my wife grappling with a tree as she frantically pulled herself out of a snow hole.  One of her legs went off the path and sank down into about 3 feet of snow which is something that has happened to anyone who has ever been around snow.  My wife however is a Floridian and has watched too many shows with that English survival expert on the Discovery channel dodging death as he tries to avoid crevasses in the Arctic.  This wasn’t the arctic and I am pretty sure that the only thing at the bottom of this snow hole was some grass and a little mud but nevertheless she was “traumatised” by the experience.  She grabbed my daughter and yelled “get back it’s not safe”  I meanwhile was left to “risk my life” by reaching over and plucking her shoe out of the hole where she had allowed it to fall off.

Thereafter my daughter and I had a pretty decent snowball fight or at least as good a snowball fight as you can have with a little girl who gets about as much loose snow as you could fit inside an acorn cup and throws it at you from about 6 inches away.  I got my wife with a snowball right on the back of her neck which was pretty cool but that signalled the end of our day as it caused her more trauma apparently.  We set off down the mountain just as a thunder storm broke out.  Without meaning to sound too much like my wife I started thinking about that English guy on Discovery again when he talked about thunder causing avalanches but thankfully we all made it safely back to flat ground.  Given that it was actually pretty hot there we were all wearing shorts and T-shirts and with my sun burnt face anyone could have been forgiven for thinking we had just come back from the beach.  If only they knew the dangers we had faced ……..   

Denver and the Black Death

 

The day had gone exceedingly well.  The drive to the airport had been uneventful, the flight comfortable and we arrived in Colorado on a perfect spring day.  I had no idea what was going on but I missed one early clue when we were heading to get our rental car.  My wife had wanted to get an SUV for driving in the Rocky mountains but since I am used to driving a sedan I insisted on getting a midsize car.  I have never had any issues with midsize rentals except once in Tampa when Avis gave me a PT Cruiser that could barely hit 50 mph and I was almost crushed to death by an truck as I pulled onto I-75 naively thinking that I might be up to speed within ten minutes of hitting the road. 

As we entered the Denver Airport car rental area I joked with my wife and said “Don’t worry a midsize will be fine as it’s hardly likely to be a PT Cruiser !”   Ohhh what a stupid thing to say as inevitably the first words out of the clerks mouth were “PT Cruiser ?”  Despite the raised pitch of her voice indicating that she was asking a question she was in fact making a statement.   This wasn’t a “Is it OK if I give you a crappy car ?” question but rather a “The only car we have other than SUV’s is a PT Cruiser.” statement.  I couldn’t believe it but c’est la vie.  Twenty minutes later and we were on the road in our rental SUV.  We drove into Denver and marvelled at a spectacular view of the snow covered Rockies.  A swift visit to the “Nature and Science” museum was followed by a delicious lunch and a lovely stroll through the city.  I had wanted to move to Colorado for some time but within 4 hours of arriving I was convinced that this was the place for me so I told my wife “we need to move here.” 

Anyone who knows me is aware that I am pretty stubborn and once I have made my mind up it can’t be changed.  As we walked though the city center park on the freshly cut grass with the spring air gently blowing through our hair there was nothing that could possibly sway my mind.  Well practically nothing however just as I was starting to look for local real estate listings I noticed a yellow banner had been hammered to the sign post beside our car.  The headline was pretty eye catching “PLAGUE” it read.  Apparently Denver has recently experienced an outbreak of the bubonic plague.  That’s right, the bubonic plague.  13 million people died of the “Black Death” in Europe and it is something that has kept terrrified germophobes awake for centuries and yet suddenly here on this perfect day it was suddenly thrust into my world.  I didn’t even know that the disease still existed but it would appear that the rodent population of Colorado decided to reintroduce it to the world this April.  It seemed almost as if this was a a joke. What better way to persuade a would be Denverite to pack up his crap and get on the first plane back to Florida than this ?

The producers should have left it at this since I immediately decided not to relocate from Florida at all but they over did it a little with their next stunt.  I say the “producers” since it is pretty bloody obvious you are in the “Truman Show” when immediately after being told your dream city is plague infested that you pick up a copy of USA Today which proudly anounces “Gainesville, Fl is the best place to live in the USA.”  Seriously that is what happened.  We left the park and my wife (who rather suspiciously was against the whole Denver thing to start with) handed me a copy of the hot of the press paper which had that headline on the front page.  Ohh how realistic that Gainesville the insiginificant, over crowded, alligator infested, sweaty swamp hole that I just happen to live in is suddenly the best place in the country to live.  Give it up “Truman show” execs.  The game is up and I’m onto you.   For months I thought my 5 year old daughter was weird because she walks around the house reciting TV commercials but now it all makes sense.  I should have realised when you pulled the stunt with the PT Cruiser but this is too much.   That is it I am leaving the show.

Satan, Soprano and brunch.

The great thing about work is that no matter how bad your day is you know that at least it is not as bad as tomorrow will be.  I am currently trying to develop some kind of system for measuring different levels of shitty work days.  I have been tracking recent events and noticed therehas been a definite increase in the degree to which my days have been crap but the amazing thing is that what seemed like the ultimate in bad days just one week ago has now been surpassed 5 times over.  I now believe that there are no boundaries to how bad work days can be.  I suppose it is like the universe constantly expanding to infinity as every day people invent colourful and cruel ways to make my job more and more intolerable.

There are two root causes of suffering at my work : the public and my superiors.  The public are the unpredictable wild card whose actions constantly shock and amaze.  I called a customer recently and suggested that she should look at re-financing her house.  The customer seemed keen on the idea so I invited her to come to the branch within the next few days to put in a loan application.  An hour after I had made an arrangement to meet her at 9am on Friday she called back and asked me if she could bring her friends with her.  I thought it was an odd request but said that was fine.  One hour later she called again and asked if it was OK if she brought 12 family members along with her in addition to her friends.  I explained that my office was fairly small but she was free to bring anyone along although their presence was hardly necessary.  So Friday came along and the branch manager unlocked the doors only for my customer and a mob of friends and family to come barging in demanding to know “what is there to eat ?”  The branch manager was a little confused by their request but politely explained that we had no food for them.  It was at this point that it emerged that my customer had a problem differentiating between an English person inviting her to the “branch” and the American word “brunch.”  The mob caused a small riot before finally leaving in a mad fury.  I would have thought that anyone with half a brain would have realised that the chances of your local bank providing a slap up breakfast for the half the town were pretty remote but in this crazy world these are the kind of nutcase customers I have to spend my time with. 

My new boss has little sympathy for me when I explain how my honest attempts at generating new business result in dismal failure on a regular basis.  This week for example I had one mortgage fall through because it transpired that the customer trying to refinance the house neither owned it nor had any connection with the business that did.  I had another customer who I called to see if he wanted to do a refi and having agreed to do so he arranged to come by the branch between his wifes funeral and the post burial reception.  Nice.  I am surprised he didn’t come by before the funeral so he could have her sign the docs with her cold dead hand.  Those nutters were at least nice as opposed to the customers who have spat at me, called me a “###king Mick Bastard” and threatened me with walking sticks within the last 2 months. 

The boss doesn’t care about the insanity levels of the public as he decided to tell his boss that we would double our goals this month for no reason other than to make himself look good.  The fact that he looks and talks like Tony Soprano is a pretty good reason to try and keep him happy because he has already insinuated that anyone who fails can expect to get some new concrete shoes and spend the rest of their days as gator bait.  Soprano has been going more and more insane each day lately but tomorrow promises to be the absolute worst day we have had this year since Soprano’s boss is coming to town and his name is Satan.  I have never really had a good rapport with Satan perhaps because of my insistence on wearing a crucifix round my neck or possibly because he is a complete bastard.   Ohh well at least tomorrow after I am whipped, hung drawn and quartered by marauding demons I can rest easy in the knowledge that at least tomorrow is not as shitty as the next day will be.

Amazing Race All Stars : Oh Danny Boy !!

 

It was bound to happen the minute a shady deal was struck with the beauty queens but all the same I was sad to see Danny and Oswald join the scrap heap of fading reality TV stars by being eliminated on Sunday night.  I didn’t care for the flamboyant fellows on their first season but as I became increasingly irritated with their “allstar” opponents I found myself rooting for the dynamic duo but alas their goose has finally been cooked.

With those two out of the way I am having a hard time trying to decide who to support for the last leg.  The beauty queens have some obvious qualities although I like the short one much more than the taller horsey looking one and on the previews for next weeks show it looks as though big blonde goes ape on small blonde which doesn’t bode well for their chances.  I guess I could just support shorty and hope that she figures out a way to ditch her partner and clone herself during the last leg and cross the finish line first.  Phil never seems particularly interested in what is going on anyway so I am sure he wouldn’t even notice, just as long as he sees two blonde pony tails on the mat.

I have a lot of respect for Charla considering not only the physical disadvantage that she has had to overcome but also the mental disadvantage that comes from being on a team with Mirna.  I couldn’t believe it last night when Mirna revealed that she deliberately tries to immitate foreigners accents during the race because she thinks it will make her easier to understand !  All this time I had put it down to either a subconcious mishap or brain damage but apparently it is part of her strategy.  Next time I am in Canada I will have to try that  aye.

The last team in contention are also the most insignificant.  I have watched every season of the show and yet I have absolutely no idea who the hell Eric and Danielle are.  I can only assume that I am the victim of some kind of “Truman show” stunt where history is being re-written and I am being tricked into thinking that I have seen these two grumpy whingebags before.  I don’t know where Danielle shops but she may want to try going to a regular clothes shop rather than a scuba diving store next time she picks out a suitable outfit for racing around the world in.  Everywhere she has been she has worn her skin tight rubber diving outfit.  No wonder she looks so bloody miserable the whole time as she must have all kinds of nasty sweat rashes under that suit.   Eric on the other hand does a great job of demeaning women by referring to anyone who outwits him as a “dirty whore.”  Nice going curley perhaps there is a reason your buddy from the last season didn’t want to team up with you again.  I thought it was pretty funny that Eric whinged so much that Danny went from feeling “guilty” for yielding him to having “NO REGRETS” by the end of Sundays show.  The fact that Eric upset my boys from Miami means that I can’t cheer him and sweaty face on in the final so it’s got to be Dustin and clone Dustin and if that fails then I hope Charla wins by herself after Mirna gets decked in Glasgow for mocking Scottish accents or something.  Here’s hoping !!